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FPGA Based Videogame System


kevtris

Interest in an FPGA Videogame System  

682 members have voted

  1. 1. I would pay....

  2. 2. I Would Like Support for...

  3. 3. Games Should Run From...

    • SD Card / USB Memory Sticks
    • Original Cartridges
    • Hopes and Dreams
  4. 4. The Video Inteface Should be...


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I would tend to agree, because, I put an ancient slower-than-class-1 SD card into the PC, and Emulator Stella sorted through 5000+ roms instantly. Granted they are small roms, so I upped the stakes and used much bigger roms on other emulators and their names were read and sorted instantly too.

The speed is a non-issue I think. I have a Class 10 32Gb card in my N64 Everdrive v3 and that sucker can load Conker's Bad Fur Day (64 Megabytes) in ~3 seconds. When dealing with puny ROMs for vintage 8-bit systems, I think speed is a non-issue. Having said that, I have an ancient 2Gb SD card (FAT-16 formatted), probably purchased in 2006 or thereabout, with no speed class markings at all. It took over 2 hours to copy a directories full of Atari ROMs. I think there were like 30 megs worth of stuff on it....

 

I also need to invest in a quality reader. My class 10 cards barely transfer at 6Mb/s according to Windows, and I just found out that "Sunpak 72-in-1 high speed card reader" I bought at Walmart several years ago cannot handle SDXC cards at all. It reports to Windows the card is not formatted properly, and does not list the capacity in disk management either.

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A PDF reader would pretty much need it's own OS, capable of decoding the format. Might be able to modify one of the existing cores to do so, but that is a good deal of work. Maybe a basic text file reader could be possible, but that might be something for a fan project. Develop it as cart image, capable of reading the appropriate files.

 

Looks like I'll need to save up for some cart and port adapter doo-dads. Even if I embrace my Pirate side, something in me wants the legit means to play those games, if the opportunity presents itself. Well, that and the collector in me that wants "All of the Things" Worthwhile investment, to me.

ASCII text reader would be doable, even running on NES core. Line width needs to be 32 characters or less (and maximum 30 displayable lines) or else you get wrapping issues. And playing it safe with display zones, probably no more than 28 wide by 26 tall. That would make even the old ASCII game guide text docs hard to read. Also pet peeve of mine, most mobile web browsers don't even supply a fixed width font anymore, so reading ASCII text guides can be a chore if the author decides to build tables or pseudo-graphics out of ASCII text.

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I feel exactly the same myself, so I've tried to figure out what happened.

 

Ah cr*p ... I suspect that it's a couple of the more-obnoxious-asshats at my very own main hang-out, PCEngineFX. :sad:

 

Particularly one guy "ProfessorProfessorson" who quit the forum some time last year.

 

Kevtris kindly came over to answer some questions about the Hi-Def NES kit and got jumped on by a couple of rude idiots who were armchair-quarterbacking everything, and appointing themselves defenders-of-the-faith.

 

There were others supporting kevtris, but as a "community", the moderation policy is very liberal, and it can be a tough place to hang out.

 

Some folks seem to treat the whole members-only aspect of the place, which was put there by the site owner to reduce traffic and his hosting costs, as an excuse to engage in childish and rude behavior.

 

The vast majority don't ... although the forum's reputation for being very unkind to "collectors" rather than "players" is well-deserved.

 

I can only put forward my own apology to kevtris for his treatment.

 

I say screw them. If Kevtris decides to release a TG-16 core, let him. Even better if it runs ISO files from the SD card. Peeps over there acting all high and mighty like their collecting forum is the be all and end all. The more hardcore fanboys of the system can be just as bad as Neo-Geo fans. IMO, TG-16/PCe is a brilliant system with a smallish but excellent library, and well deserved as a spot next to SNES and Genesis for the 6-bit video game era, even if it took a back seat, and games are expensive simply because there weren't as many made.I just wish the CDROM systems didn't require mountains of cash to procure.

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Well the bar has been set with the NT mini. People are going to expect the same level of future-proofing in z3k. And more. That means having enough capability "hidden" inside to be revealed later.

 

And regarding jail-break.. It's not really a jail-break at all. A real JB circumvents intentional DRM and other protections. This was a straightforward upgrade. Semantics? Maybe. But it is what it is.

I disagree here. NT Mini was advertised as a modern NES, that plays NES and Famicom. Jailbreak generally refers to hard or soft modding an existing product to enable it to do more than what the manufacturer intended.

 

With Android/iOS, Jailbreak essentially means adding the ability to run external software not supplied by the software vendors. With NT Mini, Jailbreak essentially means adding the ability to play games meant for other systems besides physical NES or Famicom carts.

 

Since Kevtris had a hand in designing the NT Mini firmware, I believe he intended to make the hardware capable enough for future expansion, unlike the RetroUSB AVS which runs 720p max and used a XiLinx FPGA with the bare minimum amount of gates for a basic menu substructure and NES hardware.

 

That said, the price was right and it's a great system for what it does. Also the case design just looks like it was lifted out of the late 80s. Also the AVS has a built in cheats database and allows you to submit high scores online.

 

How much does the milled aluminum case on the NT Mini cost by itself? How many more people would have bought the NT Mini had it used a case made out of laser cut acrylic (or even 1/4" plywood), and shaved off $150-200 or so from the retail price? I'm a buyer in the $250 range. $450-$500, not so much...

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Does anybody know if the C64 is definitely being ported by Kevtris or any of the other older computers? I know we would also need a keyboard adapter as well...

 

Dunno. But I just learned of an Atari 8-bit remake built around the Cyclone FPGA. Looks like it has other hardware on the board to support 8-bit hardware like carts and SIO and such. Any computer-in-FPGA is just crying out for additional misc. support hardware to go with it.

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Not to be a contrarian, the name is funny and all (I'm aware of it's origin), but it's way too close to both Zumba (the silly exercise fad), and Roomba, on top of having absolutely nothing to do with describing the product. It's very hard to remember. A bit of clever marketing goes a long way, but I agree it should not have "retro" or "box" or "gaming" in the title. What about the Funtastic 3000?

Try harder. Funtastic N64, created by big N. Lawsuit eminent. :roll:

N64-Console-Funtastic-Series.jpg

 

Bonus points if the standard Zimba3000 comes in gloss black acrylic, but then the Funtastic3000 comes in multiple blacklight sensitive translucent flourescent colors... :grin:

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The speed is a non-issue I think. I have a Class 10 32Gb card in my N64 Everdrive v3 and that sucker can load Conker's Bad Fur Day (64 Megabytes) in ~3 seconds. When dealing with puny ROMs for vintage 8-bit systems, I think speed is a non-issue. Having said that, I have an ancient 2Gb SD card (FAT-16 formatted), probably purchased in 2006 or thereabout, with no speed class markings at all. It took over 2 hours to copy a directories full of Atari ROMs. I think there were like 30 megs worth of stuff on it....

 

I also need to invest in a quality reader. My class 10 cards barely transfer at 6Mb/s according to Windows, and I just found out that "Sunpak 72-in-1 high speed card reader" I bought at Walmart several years ago cannot handle SDXC cards at all. It reports to Windows the card is not formatted properly, and does not list the capacity in disk management either.

 

Seems there's a lot of directory thrashing. By running SuperCache from SuperSpeed I was able to increase write speeds on slow-ass flash cards by like 50x. What took half an hour, took 2 minutes.

 

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I say screw them. If Kevtris decides to release a TG-16 core, let him. Even better if it runs ISO files from the SD card. Peeps over there acting all high and mighty like their collecting forum is the be all and end all. The more hardcore fanboys of the system can be just as bad as Neo-Geo fans. IMO, TG-16/PCe is a brilliant system with a smallish but excellent library, and well deserved as a spot next to SNES and Genesis for the 16-bit video game era, even if it took a back seat, and games are expensive simply because there weren't as many made.I just wish the CDROM systems didn't require mountains of cash to procure.

Yeah, you're missing the point that I was trying to make ... most folks there would love to see Kevtris make a PCE core.

 

He has the necessary level of personal-perfectionism to do the job right.

 

People can look at a bunch of the open-source FPGA cores on the MiST, and see just how much work it takes to make a good one, and how long it takes to get it debugged.

 

Kevtris has demonstrated both his superior skills, and his passion, in creating his own library of cores.

 

There's only a small-few die-hard luddites that don't understand that, and worry about the "purity" of the end-experience.

 

The PCE's historical importance as the first CD-based videogame console, with hundreds of released titles in Japan, comfortably outselling the Sega MegaDrive in its own country-of-origin, seems lost to many Americans, who only see it as a 3rd-place fail in the American market ... but heck, you really don't need me to prosthelytize here.

 

The point is ... everyone that I know would love to see Kevtris release a PCE core (preferably a SuperGrafx-ArcadeCD core).

 

But if he chooses not to, or to just de-prioritize it ... then that's absolutely his right.

 

It's just sad for all of us that love the machine, wherever they gather.

Edited by elmer
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If he can't release it for whatever reason, then those instigators have won.

From my understanding of what Kevtris has said, it's just not possible to release a full PCE core on the Analogue NT Mini.

 

The PCE has a very high memory-access speed in comparison to all of the other 4th-gen, 16-bit, machines, and IIRC, he's said that the Analogue NT Mini hardware just isn't quite fast-enough.

 

Folks that aren't technical, don't necessarily understand the tradeoffs in the PCE design, and how darned good it was, and just see its 1-backgound-playfield, vs 2-background-playfields on the MegaDrive, vs 2.5 background-playfields-plus-rotation on the SNES.

 

As someone that professionaly-programmed the big-two machines back-in-the-day, I can point out exactly where the limitations are in each of the three machine's designs, and now that I'm semi-retired, it's the PCE that I go back to, and not the Genesis or the SNES.

 

The SNES has some of the best games that have ever been made ... but so does the MegaDrive ...

 

... and so does the PCE, although a lot of them were Japan-only.

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From my understanding of what Kevtris has said, it's just not possible to release a full PCE core on the Analogue NT Mini.

 

The PCE has a very high memory-access speed in comparison to all of the other 4th-gen, 16-bit, machines, and IIRC, he's said that the Analogue NT Mini hardware just isn't quite fast-enough.

 

Folks that aren't technical, don't necessarily understand the tradeoffs in the PCE design, and how darned good it was, and just see its 1-backgound-playfield, vs 2-background-playfields on the MegaDrive, vs 2.5 background-playfields-plus-rotation on the SNES.

 

As someone that professionaly-programmed the big-two machines back-in-the-day, I can point out exactly where the limitations are in each of the three machine's designs, and now that I'm semi-retired, it's the PCE that I go back to, and not the Genesis or the SNES.

 

The SNES has some of the best games that have ever been made ... but so does the MegaDrive ...

 

... and so does the PCE, although a lot of them were Japan-only.

 

I think the limitation was actually the size of the FPGA, because a smaller FPGA would require PSRAM/SRAM and not just DRAM to make up for the lack of block memory. Hence bandwidth comes into play.

 

Like if you physically look at a SNES and the PCE, they sometimes use the exact same PSRAM. https://console5.com/wiki/SRAM_256Kb:_32K_x_8-bit

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Does anybody know if the C64 is definitely being ported by Kevtris or any of the other older computers? I know we would also need a keyboard adapter as well...

Kevin has said he has a partial C64 core but there is tons of stuff on his list of things to do. Atari Lynx and C64 are 2 cores that I would love to see on the system but I think it is probably best to look at what it can do today if someone is going to buy it or not.

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Kevin has said he has a partial C64 core but there is tons of stuff on his list of things to do. Atari Lynx and C64 are 2 cores that I would love to see on the system but I think it is probably best to look at what it can do today if someone is going to buy it or not.

 

 

Am I the only one who wants an Apple 2 core? That would be oh so nice.

Isn't this an FPGA with those cores?

 

http://www.mcchome.arcaderetrogaming.com/

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Am I the only one who wants an Apple 2 core? That would be oh so nice.

Oregon Trail, Number/word munchers, Wolfenstein, any Jordan Mechnar game...This, MSX MSX/2 and TG-16/PC Engine and I could die happy I think.

 

Best purchase I've made in a long time. I was happy when it only played nes games, the core store is simply an amazing bonus. I can never express how amazing this is Kevin. Thank you

 

I'm a day one Z3K purchaser for sure...When the day comes can you do a midnight release for old-times sake Kevin? I'll line up! LOL.

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I signed up here because of this project - looks really promising especially since it has already started with the nt mini.

I really like the idea of a modular system running off SD cards with options for analogue AV, cartridge adapters if you want them, standardised connector for pad adapters - sounds amazing!

A few questions if I may;

Is it likely that the Z3K will be able to support SNES, MD & PCE?

With regards to MD & PCE are CD hardware cores feasible?

Is it possible to implement tools for the gameboy cores for backing up saves/data from the carts, I think it was mentioned there are similar tools in the NES core for dumping the cart?

Are you planning to build in bluetooth support for pads?

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Was the original Choplifter an Apple ][ game?

It was the original platform. All others were ports. That also explains why the way it controlled didn't necessarily seem optimized on other systems. Same thing with games like Lode Runner. It's a testament to how great those games designs were that it didn't really matter.

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